In many industrial and/or commercial buildings a roof hatch is attached as a through hole to the top of the roof for maintenance performance. As one may know from using a roof hatch, it is quite dangerous to climb up onto the roof through the hatch without having a secure grab hold to steady a maintenance person carrying a lot of tools and/or equipment.
It would be an advantage to secure a roof hatch grab bar to a roof hatch in order to allow stability and security for maintenance personnel and/or anyone climbing up onto the top of an industrial roof. It would also be an advantage to provide stability to a maintenance person for bringing equipment and tools up onto the roof to perform the maintenance procedures.
A need has arisen for a grab bar assembly that is easy to install for adjustable roof hatch dimensions, without crushing the insulation around the hatch. As other hatch safety railing systems typically crush the insulation, thereby causing leaks into the building below, it would be a real advantage to provide a new, non-crushing design.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,167,659 issued Jan. 2, 2001 to Harold Swindell III is a prior art hatch rail system, but is not a non-crushing design, leaking to potential leaks.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,681,528 issued Jan. 24, 2004 to Profeta, et. al, also disclosed a prior art hatch rail system, although it also poses a problem with the insulation as well as causing potential leak problems.